These Recruiting Posters are from the Navy History Art Collection. LCDR McClelland Barclay (1891-1943) was an accomplished illustrator, sculptor and jewelry designer before he joined the Naval Reserve in 1938. In October 1940, Barclay reported for active duty at the New York Recruiting Office where over the next two and a half years he designed posters that would become some of the Navy's most popular recruiting images of World War II. LCDR Barclay made short tours of duty aboard various ships in the Atlantic and Pacific. On 18 July 1943, Barclay was aboard LST-342 when it was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine. Barclay, along with most of the crew perished.

Barclay presented his sailors as square-jawed and robust. A gunners mate remarked that he didn't look at all like the drawing. He commented that "If I drew you like you are, it wouldn't make much of a recruiting poster, would it?"

This selection of Barclay's work is presented as appropriate for the BUSC Navy Night.

Gun Crew Loading 4" 50 Caliber Mark 12

Poster

Naval Aviation Cadets

Gun Crew Loading 5" 38 Caliber Gun

General Quarters

Admiral King was Commander in Chief U.S. Fleet from 30 December 1941 to 2 September 1945. This portrait was used as the basis for a poster with the caption "Admiral King Needs Your Help - Buy War Bonds!" Unfortunately, an example of the poster does not exist in the Collection.

Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King

Sailor Working on Airplane

Poster

Navy Gun Crew with 5-inch AA

Poster

Your Future

Protect Your Future

Shooting the Sun

Poster

Silence, the Enemy is Listening

This is the Team

General Dwight D. Eisenhower

General Eisenhower, as Supreme Allied Commander,led the Normandy invasion. --Admiral Ingersoll, as Commander-in-Chief of the Atlantic Fleet, spent several months of 1942 gathering information from commanders on the east coast of the United States regarding German U-boat activity. His close contact with his officers enabled him to know local conditions and thus to deploy his forces where they could be most useful. Under his sagacious leadership, the Atantic U-boat menace was contained.